


carry on (for you)

by scorpionGrass



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Twilight Town (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: “So, what will you do now?”It’s a loaded, heavy question, and Naminé doesn’t know exactly how to answer. She looks out at the horizon, the red sun setting into the waves, and clasps her hands together in front of her. “What would you do?”Riku shrugs. “I know what he’d want you to do.”
Relationships: Naminé/Riku Replica (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Het Swap Exchange 2020





	carry on (for you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raininshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/gifts).



~

_“Hey! What are you doing? Take the vessel!”_

_His replica just smiled. “No. The world already has you,” he said. “There’s someone else who needs the replica more. You know who I mean.”_

~

“So, what will you do now?”

It’s a loaded, heavy question, and Naminé doesn’t know exactly how to answer. She looks out at the horizon, the red sun setting into the waves, and clasps her hands together in front of her. “What would you do?”

Riku shrugs. “I know what he’d want you to do.”

The replica, the one who said he’d protect her no matter what, even if his memories were fake, even if his life was a lie. Naminé grips her hands together tighter. “Live, right?” she says softly.

She can feel Riku’s eyes on her, and the sea salt breeze rolls her hair back over her shoulders. It’s hard to know what to do when she was one of those who was never supposed to exist. She had only ever existed under the thumb of others who told her what to do. To break someone apart and put them back together, to go back to the soul she was a part of… She’d never had a choice.

“It’s hard to know what to do with this gift he has given me. I’ve never had to think about what I want before.”

“I guess,” Riku says, “you have all the time in the world to figure it out, then.”

The waves crash against the beach, the sound soothing and familiar even though Naminé’s never been here before. The others are trying to figure out how to get a bonfire started before night settles in, and Riku watches them struggle to figure out how to use flint and tinder before Donald sputters his way through them all and casts Firaga.

Naminé laughs as the flames go up in a rush and everyone except Axel stumbles back a few steps. “What about you? What will you do now?” she asks.

“Terra asked me to look after the Academy for a while,” Riku says. “Aqua told me she’s planning to go back to the Dark World, with Terra and Ventus, and there’ll be no one to safeguard the Land of Departure while they’re gone.”

“She’s going back? So soon?”

Riku smiles as if amused at her concern. “She’ll be with her friends this time. Her memories of them were what got her through it the last time. With them by her side, I doubt there’ll be much to worry about.”

“Oh, okay,” Naminé says, not sure what to say. She guesses Aqua’s just lucky to have friends like that.

It doesn’t take long for everyone to start roasting the small pile of fish they’d caught, and soon the beach smells like dinner. Xion gestures for Naminé to sit beside her, and it’s not long before the rest of their crew gets pulled into the bonfire’s orbit. Aqua goes around making sure everyone gets their share with a broad smile as Terra insists she relax, while Kairi rustles a bag of marshmallows from her backpack.

When they’re all settled, the moon hanging in the night sky, each star a world they’ve saved, Naminé watches Riku from across the flames of the bonfire and wonders exactly how well he knew his replica.

~

_“What did I ever have? My body and heart are fake,” the Replica said, brandishing his keyblade._

_“But there's one thing you can't take from me anyway... even if it is a lie! I will protect Naminé. Phantom promise or not, it's MY promise!”_

~

Riku never really got to know his replica, not in the same way Sora did, but he knows two things for sure about his doppelganger; one, that he doesn’t care that his memories are fake, and two, that he cares more about Naminé’s happiness than his own.

It’s why, during the flight to Twilight Town, he waits till the rest are asleep to talk to Axel.

“You knew Naminé before, right? At Castle Oblivion?” he asks, breaking the silence of space turbulence and the light snores of Roxas behind them.

“Yeah, why?”

“Was she always alone?”

Axel lets out an amused breath. “She was… kind of pathetic, back then. No offense, but she had no backbone. No friends. And the Organization had her under their thumb, so she had no freedom either.”

Riku nods, keeping his eyes out the dash of the Gummi Ship. It dawns on him that those were the things his replica wanted for her. “Well, she has a backbone now,” he thinks aloud. “And freedom. No one’s holding her captive anymore. Not DiZ, not the Organization…”

“You forgot the friends part. She has us!” Axel says with a grin.

Riku smiles. “Yeah, she does.”

So what else could his replica possibly want for her?

“You know… we were never friends,” Axel blurts out. “But I liked her. Of course, when you’re working for the Organization, self-preservation takes priority. I was already a traitor, but if word got back that I helped her? Man… I don’t know.”

“You helped her?”

“Help isn’t really the right word,” Axel says, pensive. “Nudged? Yeah. I kinda just nudged her in the direction she wanted to take. Ended up making more work for us, but it was worth it. I was never all that interested in the Organization’s goals, anyway.” He waves his hand flippantly. “But yeah. She wanted Sora to know the truth about the lies she’d planted in his memories.”

Riku shrugs, tipping the Gummi Ship into the nearest nebula line. “What about my replica?”

“Repliku?”

Riku snorts. “Is that what you called him?”

“Whatever, man.” Axel rolls his eyes. “It was Larxene’s idea.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Riku smiles. “So, what was his deal?”

“That was her idea too. Replacing his memories, taking away his autonomy, the whole thing. She thought it’d be fun to have him fight over Naminé with Sora.”

Riku remembers a bit of that. The hero story they’d made up and kept referencing. It had been the worst kind of obnoxious. Somehow, though, he gets it. He knows how badly Naminé wanted to be saved, because she knew she couldn’t do it herself. They just capitalized on her own desires, her power growing from how trapped she felt and how much she wanted a hero of her own. And then they made her make one for herself, even if he was doomed to fail.

“That’s messed up,” Riku says.

“Tell me about it. He’s the reason she has a body now though, right? So maybe it wasn’t all trash.”

“Yeah…”

They look back to the others, sleeping soundly after a long day at the beach. Riku’s eyes catch on Naminé, clutching a new sketchbook in her lap that’s open to a page full of sketches of the shells she and Xion had collected on the shore. Somehow, he knows she’ll be alright.

~

_“He’s the one they all miss. It’s… not me.”_

_“Wrong!” Sora said. “What about me, Kairi, Donald, Goofy? The King! Roxas too, he misses you! And someone else special I know won’t let you down.”_

~

Maybe it hasn’t been long enough, but when they all touch down in Twilight Town, Naminé only feels uneasy. The mansion she once inhabited with Diz might not really be haunted, but it’s still full of ghosts to her, and being around Xion and the others only makes her feel worse even if they harbour no hard feelings.

Naminé sighs at all the things she’s had to do because others wanted to play with lives as the gambling chips.

She’d spent most of the ride in the Gummi Ship asleep, clutching the seashells she and Xion had collected by the shores of Destiny Island in one hand with her sketchbook in the other. They left imprints in her hands from where the edges pressed into her palms, and Naminé finds it further proof she exists, that she can affect the world and it can affect her back.

It still feels unreal.

“Are you staying, Naminé?” Xion asks, snapping Naminé from her thoughts and coming over to lean against the Gummi Ship with her. “Axel says he’s convinced ol’ Scrooge to give us an apartment, you could stay with us!”

“I don’t know,” Naminé answers honestly. “It's hard to figure out what to do now that I'm not working for someone else.”

“It’s weird, right?” Xion agrees. “For me, it’s just strange not having daily missions anymore. We got a day off from missions for the Organization once, and Axel slept it away while Roxas and I had no idea how to spend it.”

Naminé laughs. “Really?”

“Yeah! We were totally clueless, and we all kinda just ended up at the clock tower like we always did before we’d RTC. Um, Return to Castle, after missions, you know?” Xion giggles. “I get the feeling we’re gonna be like that nowadays too, at least for a while.”

“I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad then,” Naminé says, “not knowing what to do and all.”

Xion smiles brightly at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”

It’s reassuring, and Naminé smiles timidly back. They might have nothing in common save for the unfortunate circumstances that drew them together, but Xion deserved a replica body and a life of her own. Naminé’s still not sure she can say the same for herself.

(But the Riku replica thought she did too, so maybe that’s enough.)

“Promise that, if you decide not to stay here, you’ll at least visit,” Xion says suddenly. “We should stay connected. I know what they say about our hearts being connected, but… sometimes, that’s not enough. If you’re ever lonely, you have a place here. With us.”

Naminé thinks back to Sora’s words in the Final World. “You’d miss me?”

“I would!” Xion says, sounding almost offended. “What, you think you’re not as important as those two jokers?” she asks, jabbing a thumb toward Axel and Roxas, who are already goofing off on their skateboards with an unimpressed Isa watching from the sidelines.

Naminé giggles. “Okay, okay, I believe you.”

~

_“Bad or good, I don't know,” Naminé said. “They're a group of incomplete people who wish to be whole. To that end, they're desperately searching for something.”_

_What it was, she didn’t know._

~

A week passes by, and Naminé finds herself being dragged all around Twilight Town. She hangs out with everyone at the Secret Hideout, watches the boys practice for the upcoming Struggle Tournament, goes shopping with Xion and Olette, and eats ice cream with everyone on the clock tower. After long, full days with friends, she falls asleep in the apartment above the bistro that old Scrooge rents out to them because they all work jobs assisting Little Chef in his cooking ventures.

Her nights are restless, to say the least, and it has nothing to do with the fact that she sleeps on their couch. A temporary position, because Naminé doesn’t know where she would go if she decided not to stay. Where would feel like home, because she can’t go back to the mansion with its white walls so much like Castle Oblivion.

And all that would do is make her miss the Riku replica even more.

She’s lounging around in her pajamas in the small living room of the apartment, sketchbook propped up against her thighs as she ponders over a blank page, when Riku walks through the front door.

“You’re home,” he says, a little surprised.

“I’m home,” she says, the words sticking in her throat uncomfortably. “The others are working at the bistro. What are you doing here?”

Riku shrugs, sitting at the end of the couch by her feet. “Picking up my stuff. I’ll be leaving for the Land of Departure in the morning. I don’t have much, but I’ll need it all if I’m gonna be guarding over the Academy.”

Naminé shuts her sketchbook and curls her knees up to her chest. “You’re really leaving?”

“Yeah. Keyblade Master duties, y’know?”

She doesn’t, but she can imagine. “You’ll be all alone there.”

“I guess. I don’t really mind, it’s not like I’ve never been alone before.”

Naminé remembers back when he worked with her and DiZ, to protect Sora all by himself while she toiled away at his memories. “You don’t have to be. I could go with you. I mean, I don’t know if I’d be any help, but I guess if you want company?”

Riku chuckles. “It wouldn’t be unwelcome. I’m basically just house-sitting, it’s just a… really big house.”

“I don’t mind,” she says earnestly.

It takes a moment for Riku to speak again, and when he does, he looks her right in the eye. It’s intimidating. “Do you really want to leave Twilight Town?” he asks. “The only thing you have to worry about is your happiness now, you know. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I know, but—”

Riku sighs, running a hand down his face. “Is this about Repliku?”

“Repliku?”

“That’s what the Organization called him, apparently. My replica.”

Naminé feels a hot, embarrassed flush crawl up her neck to the tips of her ears. “Sorry, I—”

Silence draws out between them as Naminé hesitates, clutching the edges of her sketchbook like a lifeline. “I don’t know,” she says finally, feeling tears well up. “I guess I just feel like if he gave me some direction I wouldn’t be… like this.”

“Like what?” Riku asks, prompting her to go on.

“Like, I’m fine, I guess? But then we get home every night and I go to sleep and I can’t help but feel like some big part of me is missing,” Naminé says. “Everything just feels weird without him. He’s the one who got me this body, so shouldn’t he tell me what to do with it? I can’t even tell him how grateful I am.”

She shudders, hugging her knees closer. “I just thought, since he’s you… maybe you’d know what I should do.”

Riku nods in understanding. “I get that. But he chose to leave, and he chose to give you a body he could’ve taken for himself,” he says. “And we may look similar, but our paths diverged years ago. I don’t have the answers. I can’t tell you what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping away the tears tracking down her face. “I didn’t mean to put that on you.”

“Don’t be. I’d be confused too,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I guess, the only thing I know for sure is that he always put your happiness first. You before everything, including himself. If you’re doing your best to live a life you’re happy in and proud of, he’d be happy too.”

Naminé nods. “I just don’t know how to be happy.”

Riku smiles ruefully. “I’m definitely not the right person to ask, but you’ll get there. I’ve been told the journey’s different for everyone.”

~

 _“Yes, it's true.” Naminé said to them. “We may not have homes… But there_ is _someplace I want to go. And… someone I want to see.”_

~

Riku leaves, and they all congregate at the train station to see him off, his Gummi Ship soaring up into the sky before shooting off into one of the nebula lines that diverges from Twilight Town.

Naminé sits against the brick wall of the train station, watching his ship coast through the red sky until she can no longer track it through the clouds. She squints against the bright sunset, blinking rapidly as her vision fills up with colourful spots.

“You’ll hurt your eyes looking at the sun, you know,” Xion says, walking over. “I thought you’d still be here.”

“Sorry, did I worry you guys?”

“Nah, I just figured I’d check on you,” Xion explains as she sits down beside her. “You didn’t seem too good this morning.”

Naminé ducks her head, looking away. “Oh,” she says, self-conscious. She’d woken up with red puffy eyes from crying, tired and groggy and barely able to eat anything. One look in the bathroom mirror had her scrubbing all evidence from her face, but they’d still noticed. “Um, yeah.”

Xion giggles, dispelling the tension. “Don’t worry about it! Did you want to talk about it? I know dreams can be difficult, sometimes.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Naminé says.. “But, I think I’ve figured out how to talk to him again.”

“Talk to who?”

“The Riku replica.”

“You mean, the one we fought?” Xion asks, confused.

Naminé shakes her head. “No, this one is from before we met. Back when I still worked for the Organization at Castle Oblivion.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Naminé says, amused. “Though I guess you didn’t know that Axel and I met there either. But it’s okay. We have lots of time to get our stories straight.”

“Wait a sec,” Xion says, holding up a hand, “does this mean you’re staying with us?”

“If that’s alright with you?”

Xion gasps, eyes practically sparkling as she wraps Naminé in a tight hug. “This is so great!” she exclaims, pulling back with her hands set on Naminé’s shoulders. “Do you wanna move into my room then? You don’t have to sleep on the couch, you know. We could get bunk beds!”

Naminé smiles. It’s not the life she imagined for herself, but then again, she’s never had much of an imagination for her future. Though, Naminé figures, if this is it, then it’s more than she could have ever asked for. An idyllic life with friends in a town with an eternal sunset.

She gets the distinct feeling that Repliku would approve too.

They walk back to the apartment together, Xion announcing the news loudly to the entire household as soon as the door opens. Axel grins at her, Roxas drags her into the living room so they can play video games, and Isa lets out a grunt of approval.

“I’m home,” she says, and somehow the words don’t stick in the back of her throat like before.

The next day, while they all help out at the bistro, cooking and cleaning and serving, Naminé sets up her sketchbook on one of the patio tables and takes a page from Kairi’s book: she writes her first unsent letter to Repliku.

(Later, when Axel gives her a knowing look, she knows she’s doing something right.)

**Author's Note:**

> hetswap 2020 was so much fun, I'm really glad I got to participate~
> 
> thanks so much for reading, and @raininshadows: I hope I met expectations <3 this is a ship/idea I've wanted to write for since I finished KH3, so thanks for the excuse to finally write it properly :3


End file.
